Thank you Mother Nature

When things seem a bit gloomy you can always rely on Mother Nature to bring something that will lift the spirits..

Look at those colours!! aren't they beautiful - dark rich pink on the outside and peachy orange on the inside - fabulous!!

I like pink flowers - we have peonies (had peonies - last week's wind battered a lot of the blooms) I love the big multi-petaled flowers 

 and these that have 2 colours on the flower - I just wish they'd last longer!

Here's one of the few not pink plants in the garden - I think this clematis is fabulous and I'm really proud of how strong and resilient it is because its sharing the gates with a VERY boisterous honeysuckle plant - grows like a thing possessed! lol

Please don't let this blog post give you the idea that I'm a master gardener or anything.. far from it! I'm really not! but I'm trying :o)  

I'm waiting for the agapanthus to flower later in the year (some are flowering later than usual) - really looking forward to those...

I hope these flowers have brightened your day - I know they brighten mine.

x

ALBOTAT: From little acorns....

... lovely dibbers are made.

I'd like to tell you a story...

Once upon a time, not so long ago- back in the mid 1970s - a little girl planted an acorn in the back garden of her parents house....

Fast forward forty (OUCH) years and the little girl (thats her in the photo above in the garden, on her first day of school) has grown up and so has the tree.  The garden and tree, in the rear right of the photo below, have blossomed and the tree is big and strong....   gone is the 'Good Life' vegetable patch, now replaced by lawns and flower beds...

The not-little-anymore-girl now has her own house & garden and asked her Dad to make her a dibber to help plant seeds....
So he used a branch that had needed to be trimmed from the tree, turned it on his lathe and created lovely dibbers...

And that is how the acorn that I planted when I was five, grew big, and became my plant dibbers!

How great is that!

Love that my Dad thought to make the dibbers out of a branch of the tree I planted - circle of life, personal history/attachment...

x

ALBOTAT: accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative...

.. is exactly what this well cropped photo of our garden does!

The view of the alliums, gates and aquilegia in the background focuses on the good part of the garden - and makes me happy!  Pretty!
(fyi if you widen out the photo you'd see a big pile of wood and building materials/supplies - but we'll just ignore those! lol)

oops sorry - this post may appear twice in updates because it was deleted by accident and had to be reloaded! ggggrrrr
and HELEN, yes the grass needs cutting but we can't because of the previously mentioned pile of building supplies! lol  ah well - long live the weeds and the wilderness! lol

x

Bunting, bunting & ....

...  lots of cards were created at the Stamp Attic this weekend by 2 groups of lovely ladies... here are the bunting ladies (without Fiona who left before the photo call) (so busy creating on saturday I didn't get a chance to round them all up and take any photos! lol)

Lovely to see the different colour variations that were created...  I love that aspect of teaching classes.

I couldn't resist this pack of MyMindsEye paper - love the grey/blue/mustard colour scheme

Came home, and had a quick wander around the garden to find that the honeysuckle had, at last, started to flower - how lovely are these delicate blooms:

It was fun weekend - lots of laughs and creativity - looking forward to returning in September..

x

Its a garden shed of Lilliputian proportions...

... that we'll be creating in my class this coming Sunday at The Craft Barn. An adorable wood house with compartments filled with a garden theme...

Places are still available so come along and join the fun - green fingers aren't necessary! :o)  Contact the shop to book your place.

x

Dahlia's...

 .... glorious luscious pompoms of colour!! I really enjoy having them in the garden and watching them bloom... I thought I'd share some floral inspiration/eye-candy with you- colour (hot pink & orange!!) and form...

love how the colour is different on the underside of the petals:

(hahaha do you like how my nail varnish unintentionally matches the flowers!)

and even when the flowers have turned and are dying off they are still striking and interesting:

 lovely crinkled petals drying out in the sun..

xx

This little lady....

... has been waiting patiently in my garden to have her photo taken.... 

..well in truth she's been sat on my studio desk while I decide whether or not to turn her into a bigger project - I've decided against taking it further and so here she is - in the garden of the www for a breath of fresh air.

She's a Prima Girl, on a Prima Tag - flowers are all JOFY images - the real flowers are a Clematis - I love the detail of the flowers on this variety...

She was posing on the gates that I bought last year - LOVE how big, distressed, rusty and OLD they are (approx 5feet in height). We've moved them from the back fence to a side fence so they get more sun:

The clematis is settling in nicely and growing around the gates' detail - makes me very happy - just what I wanted it to do:

(& look at that fantastic cracked paint!!!)

I'm quite new to this gardening malarky - and as well as a few fails there have been some successes, such as the digitalis that has basically sewn and grown itself - my kind of plant lol.... I like these a lot - so pretty - especially the inside of the flower

This morning the popped head burst - revealing this gorgeous flower:

all those 'frilly' pieces are so delicate they move move in the wind..

Love the aubergine markings on the underside of the poppy, solid on the inside.... but sadly it has started to fade already.. makes me a little sad...

and finally, in stark contrast to the delicate poppy, here is the most vicious plant in the garden - a white eurygnium - look but don't touch - they're really sharp!! lol

Mother Nature really is a clever chick isn't she!

We now have 2 more gates in the garden! (couldn't resist!) both with clematis growing up them - this one is called Ooh la la:

.. and this one is Josephine - can't wait for this one to flower - its going to have lovely flowers on it - similar to Ooh la la but with mini 'pompoms' in the centre...

I like gardening but not sure I'm patient enough- the plants are NOT growing fast enough - I'm so impatient to see the flowers and their colour!!... lol... but all the plants are quite new so hopefully next year the garden will be bursting with colour - slugs allowing!

xx